Re:US Supreme Court Snubs Apple-Epic Games Legal Battle
by mrandish on Tuesday January 16, 2024 @02:07PM
(#39017449)
I agree that SCOTUS passing is correct and with everything else in your first paragraph as to why.
Addressing the issue would certainly be the job of the legislative branch but I question whether they should try to address this with a law. My feelings on this are a bit conflicted because I truly hate "Jailed Gardens" and wish they didn't exist. However, I also know that it's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to draft legislation that responds to dynamic, rapidly evolving problems in open-ended domains like high tech. It almost always ends up being ineffective, subverted or causing unintended consequences downstream.
As much as I hate it, in areas of governance often the only viable options are all non-optimal in various ways. In this case, I think the 'least bad' approach is to let Apple have their jailed garden and run it the way they want to (short of demonstrable anti-trust, of course). Personally, I opted out of Apple devices a long time ago for this very reason and use Android devices I can root and modify however I want. After all, some people like living in the iOS jailed garden and appreciate the benevolent dictator keeping them safe and making their decisions for them (or are at least willing to tolerate the costs for the benefits). For my part, this is just another of those things I really don't like but for which reflexively calling "Thar oughtta be a LAW!" would be ineffective or make things worse. The road to dystopias is paved with the good intentions of those trying to legislatively enforce idyllic utopias. It's annoying but maxing broad freedom to choose often requires tolerating the annoying behavior of others maxing their freedom to choose (including those selling time-shares in an idyllic garden-jail).
Addressing the issue would certainly be the job of the legislative branch but I question whether they should try to address this with a law. My feelings on this are a bit conflicted because I truly hate "Jailed Gardens" and wish they didn't exist. However, I also know that it's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to draft legislation that responds to dynamic, rapidly evolving problems in open-ended domains like high tech. It almost always ends up being ineffective, subverted or causing unintended consequences downstream.
As much as I hate it, in areas of governance often the only viable options are all non-optimal in various ways. In this case, I think the 'least bad' approach is to let Apple have their jailed garden and run it the way they want to (short of demonstrable anti-trust, of course). Personally, I opted out of Apple devices a long time ago for this very reason and use Android devices I can root and modify however I want. After all, some people like living in the iOS jailed garden and appreciate the benevolent dictator keeping them safe and making their decisions for them (or are at least willing to tolerate the costs for the benefits). For my part, this is just another of those things I really don't like but for which reflexively calling "Thar oughtta be a LAW!" would be ineffective or make things worse. The road to dystopias is paved with the good intentions of those trying to legislatively enforce idyllic utopias. It's annoying but maxing broad freedom to choose often requires tolerating the annoying behavior of others maxing their freedom to choose (including those selling time-shares in an idyllic garden-jail).